Global Warming: Are the Skeptics Right?

"If you look at the signatories of the op-ed, you won't find people more qualified than that," William Happer, a professor of physics at Princeton University and a signatory, told Design News. "These people are really heavyweights of the scientific world." (See a list of the scientists below.)

It's worth noting that the 16 scientists who signed the editorial aren't alone. Happer told Design News that after the editorial appeared, he received calls from colleagues who wanted to know why they weren't given a chance to sign.

The signatories aren't making a case for coal, oil, nuclear, wind, or solar power. They don't mention whether we should buy electric cars or gas guzzlers. By most measures, their opinion seems apolitical. They just believe that CO2 isn't a problem.

"The demonization of carbon has really distorted everything we do," Happer told us. "If we could back off and say, 'CO2 is probably good,' it would change the way we do things. We'd like to get back to an honest economic discussion not based on carbon footprints or assumptions about 'evil CO2.' "

Whether we agree or disagree with that assessment, it has the potential to affect everything that engineers do. Every day, engineers make decisions about the design of cars, trucks, furnaces, refrigerators, washers, dryers, and all kinds of industrial products. And the emission of CO2 plays into all those decisions. So a solid understanding of global warming science is critical.

In the wild world of the Internet, many bloggers argue that the science is settled. It's "incontrovertible," they say. But is it? Most scientists would acknowledge that the First Law of Thermodynamics is incontrovertible. So is the Second Law, Ohm's Law, Newton's laws, Bernoulli's equation, and a lot of other bedrock scientific principles. But does anthropogenic global warming really belong in the same breath as those?

You either don't know about greenhouse gas, which doesn't make you look good as it's the central issue behind AGW, you are a right-wing ideologue, which proves my point that it isn't AGW that is the problem but the implications it carries, or you're a corporate shill.

For those readers who aren't knowledgable enough, don't get sidetracked by this denier nonsense. The proof is in the scientific literature showing an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations starting at the beginning of the Inductrial Revolution and the attendant rise in mean global temperature. You must understand that climate is the signal and weather is the noise. So, when humans add greenhouse gases the energy of the system increases, thus changing its dynamic parameters, which is why weather patterns have been changing and becoming more chaotic. It's simple physics.

The fact is that the scientific reasearch supporting AGW is readily available. It is up to deniers like warren to refute it. He can't.

The earth is huge! ... But we aren't destroying the earth! There has been a lot of money made in this Al Gore scam by companies and governments. Lots of money. And lots of people hurt.

Wow, those are very scientific observations! How is this subject at all about Al Gore? Physics cares nothing about his opinion nor yours. For the record, I believe Al Gore was not hurting financially before he dedicated his message to trying to convince knuckleheads like you that physics is real, but since then he has donated all of his climate change work proceeds (where would that come from, exactly, and could it be a fraction of the compensation of fossil fuel executives?) to charity. Please explain how this hoax is supposed to work, because there are billions being made by the fossil fuel industries and there's an obvious incentive for them to invest heavily in massive PR schemes we are seeing, which they can easily afford, to keep the doubts and denialism thriving.

When you mention "people hurt," do you know how many people suffer from respiratory diseases and die every year from fossil fuel pollution? It's easy to google for statistics and they can be staggering.

Do you know how much the Koch brothers have made off fossil fuels or how much they have spent keeping you deniers fat, dumb, and happy? I'd bet they've SPENT more money on disinformation campaigns than Al Gore has RECEIVED from--where again does he "make" this money?-- solar energy sales as a side job?? Did you know that Koch funded a climate study by a famous science skeptic, Richard Muller, who was a darling of the denial industry, and this study turned the scientist's beliefs 180 degrees with a conclusion that global warming is absolutely real and almost certainly caused virtually 100% by human activities?

What's sad is that you refuse to deal with the objective scientific evidence the links human activity to global warming in preference of your economic ideology. And, as we've discussed, the source of your denial is that AGW implies that our ideology is the problem and therefore we must change our behavior for the greater good. That, in a nutshell, is your complaint as you have no scientific evidence to refute AGW.

"I order you to try writing a coherent and succinct post refuting AGW. I double dare you to even try."

Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it. -Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man" 1791.

Nice try, Jeffbiss. (And you even spelled my name right!) But as I said, if you want it, you have to ask, politely. Last time I checked, by the way, politely requires a bit more than just using "please" while denegrating everything you can think of about the person you are requesting from.

It is sad to say, that if the biggest collection of liars ever assembled in the history of man (our government) says there is global warming, then it must not be true.
The earth is huge! Our impact is generally confined to pollution and construction and deconstruction (war). We are not the gods we think we are. We have been given the responsibility to tend and care for the earth. Yes, we don't always do a good job. But we aren't destroying the earth!
There has been a lot of money made in this Al Gore scam by companies and governments. Lots of money. And lots of people hurt. And it will go on as long as the political correctness dominates science (a plank in the communist platform). We engineers need to make sure we are after truth and not funding...

Many of the skeptic side do routinely point out various errors in data collection by the believers, and if certainly does appear that some of the data is questionable. It is certainly correct to ask for further proof when some data is demonstrsted to be incorrect, or even just potentially incorrect.

What I see is a group of people whoi were for many years crying and complaining about how very unfair it was that those of us in the USA had a living standard that was so much higher than many other people. Thyese folks apparently felt, and still feel, it seems, that we here are somehow guilty of some sort of horrible transgressions by having a much higher standard of living. In a free country they are certainly allowed to believe such things, and not die for believing them. BUT then there are others of us who feel no guilt at all about living in houses with real floors and glass in all the windows. I don't regret having electric lights, either.

My point being that if an individual has repeatedly demonstrated that they have some specific personal agenda, we aould be wise to think that most of their activities would be tending to promote that same agenda. Therefore, it is natural to be a bit skeptical of these folks.

ON a completely different side of the discussion. there are indeed warming and cooling cycles in the history of the earth, and some of them are much longer than others. So is it also possible that we are experiencing the peaks of several cycles rising in unison, which has not happened in quite a while? And note that humans are not responsible for the susn's cycles, we don't think.

Another rambling post. If you're not trying to refute AGW, then what's your point? Why waste our time and thread space? So, I order you to try writing a coherent and succinct post refuting AGW. I double dare you to even try.

Remember that science is NOT about beliefs, it's about providing evidence to back up your claims. You haven't posted anything relevant to the AGW discussion.

Some cars are more reliable than others, but even the vehicles at the bottom of this year’s Consumer Reports reliability survey are vastly better than those of 20 years ago in the key areas of powertrain and hardware, experts said this week.

As it does every year, Consumers Union recently surveyed its members on the reliability of their vehicles. This year, it collected data on approximately 1.1 million cars and trucks, categorizing the members’ likes and dislikes, not only of their vehicles, but of the vehicle sub-systems, as well.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

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